I. Introduction: From Personal Memory to Public Ethos
15 January marks the anniversary of the death of Rauf Denktaş, the founding President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and a central figure in the Turkish Cypriot community’s struggle for political equality and security. Remembering Denktaş on this date inevitably brings to mind not only his diplomatic and political role but also the way he gave verbal form to the experience of a community that faced protracted uncertainty, violence, and isolation in the second half of the twentieth century.
Among his many recollections, one of the most frequently cited is his reference to a remark attributed to İsmet İnönü – “If you are a Turk, you will endure” – and to his own affirmation, “We are Turks, we endure.” These sentences, simple in form yet dense in implication, have often been treated as a personal motto. However, they can equally be read as a concise expression of a broader ethos of endurance that shaped the attitudes and expectations of many Turkish Cypriots during successive phases of crisis.
This commentary takes that ethos as its starting point. Its dual aim is, first, to reflect on Denktaş’s legacy and the role of endurance in the Turkish Cypriot experience, and second, to connect this notion to questions of intellectual resilience in contemporary Turkish research institutions, including AVİM, which engage with contested issues in the Balkans, the Southern Caucasus, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea.